Hey Adam, it's pretty fun! I agree with some of the other posters that landmarks and businesses could be a good addition.
I did have some trouble understanding how it's calculating distance and drawing the dashed line. It does not always draw the shortest distance from the pin to the polyline for the road. I tried a few rounds with some deliberately wrong guesses and I'm still not sure I know what it's doing. Some examples:
(1) A road that runs from southwest to northeast. I placed the pin to the southeast of the road. Eyeballing it, the shortest distance is roughly northeast. The dashed line was drawn 10-15 degrees east of north. If it's significant, it drew to an intersection (not the nearest, but reasonably close).
(2) A road that runs east-west. I placed the pin north of the road by 50-60 meters. The dashed line was drawn 15-30 degrees west of south. It did not draw to an intersection or other point of interest. It may be drawing a ray from the center of the circle of interest.
(3) A road that runs north-south. I placed the pin east of the road by 40-ish meters, near the north edge of the circle. The dashed line was drawn 15-30 degrees west of south (my guess in #2 about a ray from the center was wrong), to an intersection, giving a 102 meter distance.
(4) A discontinuous street. (Replicated for a different street! 4th St and 5th St in Marion, IA, if it helps.) The street runs north-south but has a quarter-ish-mile gap. I placed the pin not far from the southern section of the street. The dashed line was drawn from the pin, past (and nearly parallel to) the southern section, then connected to the southern tip of the northern section. Interestingly enough, the distance looked like it was pin-to-southern-section.
(5) A north-south road in rural Iowa taking advantage of the 1-mile grid. I placed the pin near the center of the circle, slightly less than one mile from the nearest point of the road. It drew the dashed line northwest and showed a distance of 2002 meters. I would have expected due west, and ~1500 meters.
(6) A road that runs north-south (with a bit of southeast a half mile south of the circle), that happened to just barely peek inside the circle on the far west. I placed the pin near the outer edge of the circle, roughly northwest. It drew the dashed line nearly due south (several miles!) but reported a distance of 281 meters.
Sometimes the distances seem reasonable even if the dashed line is drawn to a different point on the road. Sometimes the distances and the dashed lines both seem to be off. Intersections seem to have something to do with it, but there also seems to be something else going on too.
For testing, if you're interested, the intersection of "White Road" and "North Alburnett Road" in Iowa (between Marion and Alburnett) is great. It's sparse, gives you nice straight roads, with just a few driveways and other points-on-polyline to confuse(?) algorithms. If you get C Ave Extension just barely in the circle on the west, that's #6.
And for what it's worth, I had fun trying to figure this out!
I really appreciate you taking the time to look into this! I don't have much more to say right now than what I said to this person: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30742704. I need to dig into it and see. What you've written will help. I might introduce unit tests (with visuals) for this so I can sure it works in a lot of different scenarios.
There were two things that helped me overcome perfectionism. Well, probably more, but two that stand out.
One was getting focused on the purpose of my activity. I'm writing a letter to persuade X of Y. I'm writing documentation so users know how to do Z. I'm coding a module so the system can do W, which lets users do A and B. I'm patching this drywall so my house looks nicer. Then I can subvert whatever perfectionistic impulse comes my way. Maybe what I can do in the time I have, with the knowledge and skills I have isn't perfect, but it's better than what exists now. Maybe I can't write a full manual with screenshots, but I can at least create a Help page with a few bullet points--it's now better than it was, and that is progress toward achieving the purpose I set out after.
The other was having fun. Not necessarily at work or other tasks (I do have a friend that loves doing drywall; I do not feel the same!). But I found the more fun I had in life, the less hold perfectionism had on me. If I go throw a frisbee around with a friend, it doesn't matter if not every throw is perfect. It can be kind of fun to try goofy shots on a basketball court. What if I try playing a board game with a completely different strategy than usual? I might learn something, my friends or family might tease me, I might lose. Oh well. What if I try telling jokes and they fall flat? It wouldn't be the first time! Just having fun and enjoying the moment seems to keep me from focusing on myself, and that's a big part of it.
Come to think of it, being a parent (especially of small kids, because nothing is perfect in a house with small kids--wait, and older kids, because there's no way to keep older kids thinking you're perfect) helps too. And managing people (at work, or coaching a team, or coordinating volunteers), because in the practice of tolerating imperfections in others, I learned to tolerate them in myself, too.
And as I skim this over before posting, I realize that a lot of it is being less focused on myself. Easy to say. Tougher to do. And almost impossible to do when trying it.
As a framework, I've yet to find something better than the Manager Tools "Trinity" which includes coaching [0].
The short version: work with each of your directs to have a coaching goal. Help them define one or more next steps. Then let them get after it, with you holding them accountable for the steps that you defined together. You can do effective coaching in ~5 minutes per week per direct. That's not just what the Manager Tools podcast says; I've done it.
Just have one coaching goal at a time. It should be something that is pretty apparent if they've achieved it. "Get better at $COOL_TECH" is a lousy goal; "learn enough COBOL to be allowed to take $LEGACY_APP pager duty" is a nicely-measurable goal (if lousy for other reasons).
Steps will be small. You'll start by brainstorming resources with your direct. Then it might be tiny steps like "email me to confirm you bought $BOOK from Amazon by end of day today", "send me a note on Slack with the date of your meeting with Bob about $TOPIC; complete scheduling no later than noon Friday", "show me your 'Hello World' program by end of day Tuesday." Small steps early help keep the coaching work in-mind for your directs. Reporting steps to you helps them avoid putting tasks aside for a week, then scrambling to catch back up. That slows the coaching project down and stresses them out.
One of the biggest stress-relievers of the model is that "coaching" isn't the same as "teaching". Coaching resources can be books, courses, other people in the company, etc. It's also not (necessarily) related to the projects your direct is working on. Providing projects where they can stretch and grow is great (keep that up!), but there might be other skills they need to learn. Running meetings, sales, design, interviewing customers, working with other departments... Your company has its own set of skills. And it's okay if they want to learn something unrelated. A while back, I felt like I needed to learn to draw better, and I had a great boss that agreed that was worth learning on the job, even though I am not and never will be a designer-type. YMMV based on your organization, of course.
How many direct reports do you have? Having too many can make things a lot more difficult, not just for coaching.
This was a bit quick, but if you have questions I'd be happy to help!
I second the recommendation for Manager Tools. Start with the "Basics" casts on one-on-ones, feedback, coaching, and delegation to get up to speed. Their book The Effective Manager by Mark Horstman is a great place to start, too.
The podcast was super helpful to me in transitioning from IC to management.
I did have some trouble understanding how it's calculating distance and drawing the dashed line. It does not always draw the shortest distance from the pin to the polyline for the road. I tried a few rounds with some deliberately wrong guesses and I'm still not sure I know what it's doing. Some examples:
(1) A road that runs from southwest to northeast. I placed the pin to the southeast of the road. Eyeballing it, the shortest distance is roughly northeast. The dashed line was drawn 10-15 degrees east of north. If it's significant, it drew to an intersection (not the nearest, but reasonably close).
(2) A road that runs east-west. I placed the pin north of the road by 50-60 meters. The dashed line was drawn 15-30 degrees west of south. It did not draw to an intersection or other point of interest. It may be drawing a ray from the center of the circle of interest.
(3) A road that runs north-south. I placed the pin east of the road by 40-ish meters, near the north edge of the circle. The dashed line was drawn 15-30 degrees west of south (my guess in #2 about a ray from the center was wrong), to an intersection, giving a 102 meter distance.
(4) A discontinuous street. (Replicated for a different street! 4th St and 5th St in Marion, IA, if it helps.) The street runs north-south but has a quarter-ish-mile gap. I placed the pin not far from the southern section of the street. The dashed line was drawn from the pin, past (and nearly parallel to) the southern section, then connected to the southern tip of the northern section. Interestingly enough, the distance looked like it was pin-to-southern-section.
(5) A north-south road in rural Iowa taking advantage of the 1-mile grid. I placed the pin near the center of the circle, slightly less than one mile from the nearest point of the road. It drew the dashed line northwest and showed a distance of 2002 meters. I would have expected due west, and ~1500 meters.
(6) A road that runs north-south (with a bit of southeast a half mile south of the circle), that happened to just barely peek inside the circle on the far west. I placed the pin near the outer edge of the circle, roughly northwest. It drew the dashed line nearly due south (several miles!) but reported a distance of 281 meters.
Sometimes the distances seem reasonable even if the dashed line is drawn to a different point on the road. Sometimes the distances and the dashed lines both seem to be off. Intersections seem to have something to do with it, but there also seems to be something else going on too.
For testing, if you're interested, the intersection of "White Road" and "North Alburnett Road" in Iowa (between Marion and Alburnett) is great. It's sparse, gives you nice straight roads, with just a few driveways and other points-on-polyline to confuse(?) algorithms. If you get C Ave Extension just barely in the circle on the west, that's #6.
And for what it's worth, I had fun trying to figure this out!